


(one day they will see me) (one day i will be free)

by cougarlips



Series: the "zuko is a freedom fighter" canon divergent jetko au no one asked for [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Issues, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, POV Zuko (Avatar), Team Bonding, Touch-Starved, Zuko (Avatar) Needs a Hug, lets these kids be kids for once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22672516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cougarlips/pseuds/cougarlips
Summary: Normal, healthy people don’t flinch when someone moves to touch them.
Relationships: Jet/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: the "zuko is a freedom fighter" canon divergent jetko au no one asked for [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1630861
Comments: 20
Kudos: 918





	(one day they will see me) (one day i will be free)

**Author's Note:**

> title: fire in my mind by andy black
> 
> this is set in the same universe as my previous jetko fic, but it can be read as a standalone! this takes place before that fic but the gist is... there is no gist lol. zuko's on the road w jet and them after breaking away from iroh, but before they all reconnect w aang and the gaang in ba sing se. jet and zuko are full of poor coping mechanisms, bad decisions and gay panic but it's okay bc they're learning

Zuko flinched the first time Jet tried to pat his arm. He couldn’t help it; the movement was too sudden. He flinched and tried to play it off like it was nothing, but they both knew. 

Normal, healthy people don’t flinch when someone moves to touch them.

He cursed himself for it, excusing himself from their company and isolating himself even though he knew they would understand. They _did_ understand. If anyone in the world would’ve understood, it would be them. And yet he couldn’t mute the voice in his head, the one that whispered lies into his ear: _they think you’re a freak. They know you were fucked up as a kid, and you’re still just as fucked now._

Zuko watched Jet interact with his family -- because that’s who Smellerbee and Longshot were, Jet’s family -- and felt… a sense of longing. Jet was free with his touches, and at first it confused Zuko until he realized it was just how Jet _was_. He was loud and carefree, comfortable in any situation. He dragged Longshot somewhere by his elbow, pulled Smellerbee in by the shoulder and ruffled her hair when she rolled her eyes. He pulled them into hugs and pressed his lips to the crowns of their heads when they sat too quiet for too long.

It never occurred to him that he would soon be a part of Jet’s free touches.

That was something reserved for his family, wasn’t it?

“I won’t do anything if you’re not comfortable,” Jet told him a few nights later. Smellerbee and Longshot slept inside their bedrooms, but Zuko and Jet found themselves before the campfire on watch.

Zuko looked beside him to meet Jet’s eyes: soft in the firelight, his brows relaxed, making him look so much younger than Zuko was used to seeing.

He confused Zuko.

There was something about Jet that thrived off of chaos, something Zuko wasn’t sure he’d ever really understand. Jet never looked more alive than in the thick of the battle. His eyes glittered and he grinned so wide Zuko sometimes wondered if his face hurt afterwards. There was something so… wild about the way Jet lived for the fight.

But nights like this, after they’d had their adventure for the day and settled for the night, he softened. Peaceful.

Zuko didn’t say anything. He moved his eyes from the heart of the flame to meet Jet’s, unsure of what to do next.

“I get it,” Jet continued. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Or if you can’t,” he amended. “I’ll respect it. You.”

Zuko shrugged. “Didn’t think it was worth knowing,” he said. It wasn’t a lie, really.

But Jet looked at him almost… doubtfully? There was a spark of… disbelief in his eyes, Zuko thought. “You’re one of us. We care about you. You know that, right?” he asked. At the look in Zuko’s eyes, though, his eyes widened in realization.

Zuko _didn’t_ know.

Jet added, quietly, “It’s okay. Your story is yours. If you’re ready to talk about it, I just want you to know… well, you can. Whenever you want to.”

It took Zuko by surprise to hear him speak so openly, but he spent the rest of that evening thinking in silence as he kept guard. Eventually Jet waved him goodnight and left for his own room.

What Zuko hated most was the fact that Jet _didn’t know him_.

How could he say Zuko was one of them if he didn’t even know who he was traveling with?

How could Zuko tell them his story without incriminating himself?

But each day, he noted Jet’s carefree touches and his chest hurt.

“I was thirteen,” he said a few weeks later. So much later that Zuko thought Jet wouldn’t have a clue what he was referring to.

(But that day they’d come across a village invaded by the Fire Nation, and as they walked through the area they came across a girl with bandages over her arms, her hands left uncovered to show swollen, too-pink skin. None of their party made comment on it, but when night came and they seized the Fire Nation soldiers’ camp, they allowed Zuko -- donning the mask of the Blue Spirit, because he refused to fight and show his true face, but they didn’t question that -- to take out their leader personally.)

Jet’s eyes went to the scar but he met Zuko’s eyes after. Smellerbee and Longshot sat across from them, looking at him over the fire, waiting for him to continue.

“I…” Zuko began, but he froze up. How could he tell them? He backtracked. “I told you if you knew everything about me, you wouldn’t want me around. This might be one of those things,” he warned.

It was Smellerbee who assured him. “You’re a Freedom Fighter, like us. We won’t judge you for your past, Li. It’s not who you are anymore.”

Zuko smiled, a little. _Li_. If only he knew how wrong they were about him.

He took a deep breath.

“My, uh… guardian,” he said, trying to find a way to describe his father. Even referring to him as his _father_ felt wrong; Iroh had always been more of a father to him than the Fire Lord. “He was a bender. A, uh, fire bender,” he said.

Jet’s eyes narrowed, but Zuko couldn’t tell if it was because of the admission that he was affiliated with the Fire Nation or because he could sense where the story was going.

Jet was a lot of things. Stupid wasn’t one of them.

“Yeah, I was thirteen. I said something in front of him that I shouldn’t have.” Zuko paused, swallowing against the lump in his throat.

He wished he couldn’t feel the burn of their eyes on him.

“He said I, uh, needed to be taught a lesson for disrespecting him.”

Smellerbee’s eyes went wide as saucers and Longshot looked shocked, too. Jet, however, remained silent. He appeared as if he wanted to remain impassive, but he looked taken aback, too.

“He… kicked me out, after, I guess. I stayed with my uncle until we parted ways and I met you three.”

It was Longshot, actually, sitting to Zuko’s right, who looked at him, asking for permission within his expression. Zuko wondered only for a split second what he wanted until it hit him. When he nodded, Longshot reached his hand forward to brace Zuko’s shoulder. He squeezed it tightly.

Smellerbee reached forward and took Zuko’s pale hand in her own tanned ones. “You’ve got us, now,” she told him, her tone softer than usual.

It was Jet who Zuko wanted to meet the eyes of least, and yet when he finally did look at Jet he didn’t expect him to sit back, nodding once shortly.

Later that evening, when only they remained awake, Jet asked, his voice hushed, pausing between his words with uncertainty, “Can I… I mean, would you mind if I…”

Zuko nodded.

They sat beside one another, so close their shoulders brushed with each movement. Zuko never felt so painfully aware of how dark Jet’s eyes were, especially in the dim light of the moon overhead, until he faced them so closely. Jet raised his right hand, slowly, carefully, moving his gaze from Zuko’s scar to his eyes, waiting for Zuko to stop him, to say he wasn’t ready, he wasn’t comfortable, he didn’t want this -- 

Zuko closed his eyes.

Jet’s fingers were cool against his skin. His fingers landed on his cheekbone first, feather light, brushing against the deepest of the burns against his face. They traveled over where his eyebrow would’ve been, over his temple, into his hairline. 

“I know you favor your left side,” Jet said quietly. “Is your hearing impaired, too?”

Zuko shook his head. Something like a smirk lifted the corner of his mouth, not that the situation was funny. More… ironic, he thought. “Just my eye. My eardrum wasn’t affected.”

Jet continued to trace the warps of Zuko’s skin over the curve of his ear. “We’ll get him back,” he said, the note of a promise in his voice. “For what he did to you.”

He pulled Zuko in close, and then he wrapped his arms around him. He held onto him so tight Zuko wondered if he thought he would break if he let him go. 

Zuko wanted to shake his head. _You can’t,_ he wanted to tell him. _You, against the Fire Lord? You’ll die._

But to Jet, he wasn’t Zuko. He was Li, burnt and abused by his own fire bending father. To Jet, Li’s father was nothing more than any other Fire Nation grunt they’d taken out dozens of times already.

Zuko didn’t want to think about it anymore. He didn’t want to think about the Fire Lord, or his family, or the Fire Nation, or how Jet hated it all so much it blinded him with rage when he thought about it.

He didn’t want to think about them when Jet’s arms embraced him so tightly, his embrace more stable than anything he’d had in a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> a proper note bc i wanted to elaborate: if zuko fights alongside the freedom fighters, i feel like he'd hide his face since anyone from the fire nation would probably recognise him immediately. the blue spirit mask seems like the way he'd most likely go about hiding his identity since... it's how he does it in canon? i guess lol.
> 
> ~~his hugs are stable bc he's from the earth kingdom. get it? bc the earth is stable? and he's from the earth kingdom? :^)~~


End file.
